Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least 3 ways to run a diesel motor on biofuel utilizing vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are utilized with both fresh and pre-owned oils.

1. Use the oil just as it is– normally called SVO fuel (straight veggie oil);

2. Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or blend it with a solvent, or with fuel;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first 2 methods sound easiest, however, as so often in life, it’s not rather that easy.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams more easily through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.

If you’re blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (same as # 1 diesel) you’re still using fossilfuel– cleaner than a lot of, however still unclean enough, numerous would state. Still, for each gallon of

grease you use, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.

People use different mixes, ranging from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply use it that method, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), and even utilize pure grease without pre-heating it, which would make it much thinner.

You might get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is an extremely hard and tolerant motor– it will not like it however you most likely won’t kill it. Otherwise, it’s not wise.

To do it properly you’ll need what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, preferably using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there’s no for the mixes.

Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are “experimental at best”, little or absolutely nothing is understood about their effects on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with utilizing veggie oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical homes and combustion qualities from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are designed.

Diesel engines are state-of-the-art makers with very precise fuel requirements, especially the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They’re hard however they’ll only take a lot abuse. There’s no assurance of it, but using a mix of as much as 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summertime.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO service or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are typically a poor compromise. But blends do have an advantage in winter.

Just like biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel blended with straight vegetable oil reduces the temperature at which it starts to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter) More about fuel blending and blends.